


When You Speak, I Hear Silence

by MetaFic



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaFic/pseuds/MetaFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We traveled to Luna 2--she the the Cityspeaker, and I the Cityspeaker's bodyguard--to see two criminals. One was handcuffed; the other wore a crown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Speak, I Hear Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This was my small way of coping with the revelations of _Windblade_ #4. The story is set in the immediate aftermath of that issue, and it assumes Windblade and Chromia were present for Megatron's trial in _More Than Meets The Eye_ #29 and #30.
> 
> The title of this story is unabashedly taken from [Darren Korb & Ashley Barret - "We Are Become"](http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/), on the _Transistor_ OST. If you like stories about cities and voices and silence and music, then consider [picking the game up](http://supergiantgames.com/index.php/transistor/). Or just listen to the beautiful soundtrack while you cry about Chromia.

I was there for Starscream's speech, you know. The one on Luna 2, during Megatron's trial. I didn't want to go. I didn't care. Megatron, Optimus, the War -- it's all something that happened to someone else, some other time. It's not my fault that Cybertron can't get over its past. It's not my concern, and more importantly, it's not my _responsibility._

But Windblade _is_ my responsibility, and she wanted to see Starscream speak. So we traveled to Luna 2 -- she the the Cityspeaker, and I the Cityspeaker's bodyguard -- to see two criminals. One was handcuffed; the other wore a crown.

Then the Decepticons attacked, trying to free Megatron, and the old War became my concern. Not my responsibility, but there it was all the same.

Maybe that's the problem -- with me, with Cybertron, with Starscream and Windblade and all of us. The difference between _concern_ and _responsibility_. Maybe that's why I'm down an arm. Maybe that's why Windblade thought I'd killed Ironhide, and why I _did_ kill -- killed _innocents_ \-- to protect her. Concern and responsibility.

On Luna 2, the fight with the Decepticons was… good? Fun? Good fun? It's difficult for me to parse the difference. It's hard for me to be… dispassionate… about this sort of thing. Fighting is _about_ passion. It's violence and honesty and skill and a bit of luck, all at the same time. It's what I'm comfortable doing. It's what I'm _good_ at.

And so I think most fights are good and fun. Windblade would disagree.

But the speech? Something like that, she's good at. And I was there for it. I was focused on other things, of course -- the flow of the crowd, lines of sight, vantage points, blind spots. That's what bodyguards _do_. There's so many ways to kill someone, if you want to.

But again: the speech.

It wasn't until later that I heard someone say that Starscream had cribbed his opening line -- the line about not defending Megatron, but explaining him -- from an alien play about betrayals and ghosts and funerals. I'll have to take their word for it. I don't have an opinion on that. Words are like weapons: you pick the right ones, even if they've been used before.

And as this sort of thing goes, it was a fine speech. Don't get me wrong. I understand, _intellectually_ , that politics is fighting by other means. I _get_ that Starscream and Windblade and Megatron and Optimus Prime speak, and that their words _are_ weapons. And I get that words inspire people, and then those people end up fighting. People like me.

I'd say that this fact doesn't concern me -- but here we are again, that "concern" word. Does this fact _concern_ me? Do other languages have a problem teasing out the difference between concern-as-"to involve" and concern-as-"to worry"?

Windblade would know the answer to that. She'd tell me that in old Cityspeak… well, I don't want to know what she'd say. Because I already know what she'd say. Words and definitions be damned, she'd tell me that there's _not_ a difference -- that there _ought not be_ a difference -- between being worried _about_ something and being _involved_ in something.

Because to her, there is no difference. As a Cityspeaker, she speaks for the voiceless, listens to what they have to say. Cares and worries about them, takes their responsibilities as her own. And I know that doesn't make sense, that you can't _listen_ to something that has no voice. But that's the best I can put it, because that's what Windblade _does_.

She does the impossible, and she's going to get killed doing it.

Me? I don't speak for the city, and I don't listen to it, either.

But I _did_ listen to Starscream's speech -- as much as one listens to his screeching voice -- and I thought: we're going to be enemies. We're going to fight, and I'm going to kill you.

And I was right. Partly. We did fight, and he sliced off my arm. "You're not a soldier," he said. "Not a _survivor_. No imagination."

And he was right, too. Partly. I'm not a survivor. Because you don't become a bodyguard to survive. You become a bodyguard to make certain someone _else_ survives.

I've… disappointed Windblade. Hurt her. Hurt in a way that probably won't ever be fixed. But whatever she thinks of me, she'll survive. And that's enough. It _has_ to be enough.

Because… because at the end of the day, when all the words are said and all the deeds done, I have precisely _one_ concern, _one_ worry, _one_ responsibility. My concern is Windblade. I worry she won't make it home alive. And my responsibility, my one and _only_ responsibility, is to make certain she sees Caminus again.

And I'll do anything, hurt anyone, to make certain she does.


End file.
